Can't Take My Eyes Off You
by Ellen Smithee
Summary: Plagued by doubts, Bonnie finds an unexpected ally.


_No one appreciates you like I do._

That's it. Nothing else. Just a single white rose and those words, unsigned. Bonnie tries to pretend she doesn't know who sent it, but she does. It's just like him, to worm out their weaknesses—_her_ weaknesses—to try to divide and conquer. She's not an idiot, though. She and Elena might be having problems right now, but she's not dumb enough to fall for Klaus's feigned sympathy. So she crinkles up the paper and tosses it in the trash. After a brief hesitation, the rose follows.

oOoOo

In the days that come, she sees Klaus everywhere, disappearing down the next aisle when she's at the grocery store, hanging around outside the school to pick up Rebekah, sitting at the bar when she's at the Grill. She watches him constantly, unable to keep her eyes off him, not because she's _interested_, for God's sake, but she has to study him, to find out what makes him tick, otherwise she'll never be able to defeat him. He seems to be oblivious to her gazes for the most part, but one day at the Grill he looks up and catches her eye, giving her a sweet, almost shy, but at the same time knowing smile before turning away again.

"He likes you."

"What?" Bonnie drags her eyes away from Klaus and glares at Caroline. "Don't be ridiculous."

"I know that look," Caroline says and then she shudders. "Only too well. Is it wrong of me to say better you than me?"

"_Yes_," Bonnie says with a glare.

Caroline shrugs, but looks at least a little guilty. "Sorry." She gets to her feet. "I have to get going, I'm meeting Tyler later."

As Caroline leaves, Bonnie finds her eyes drawn to the bar again, but Klaus has returned to his conversation with Kol and doesn't seem to notice when she slips out as well.

oOoOo

She pushes aside her increasingly conflicted feelings and throws herself into the search for a way to kill Klaus, spending hours at the witches' house after school until night falls, poring over the grimoires until the letters and arcane symbols dance before her eyes in bed at night. If only she can find a way to kill him, she thinks, it will all be over and their lives can go back to normal.

_It can never be normal as long as Damon and Stefan are in Mystic Falls_, a voice in her head pipes up one night, but she ruthlessly vanquishes the traitorous thought.

One evening as she's leaving the witches' house, he's sitting on the steps, waiting for her. Sighing, she rolls her eyes demonstratively and strolls past him without a word, while he jumps to his feet and falls into pace beside her.

"How's your little 'let's kill Klaus' project coming along?" he asks. Her stomach tightens, but she forces herself to remain calm.

"Fine," she says in a brisk manner. "Won't be long now till we're rid of you."

"Oh, you're right about that, love," he says, his tone light. "I'll be leaving Mystic Falls soon enough. Only not in a casket, I'm afraid. And I won't be the only one who's leaving."

She gives him a sharp, quizzical glance, but his eyes are on the ground, a secretive smile playing on his lips.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks. "Why are you following me?"

She expects him to deny it, to mock her, but his answer takes her off guard.

"I don't want anything to happen to you," he says, giving her a sideways glance. His face seems sincere, but Bonnie knows he's just trying to play her.

"Nothing will happen to me." Bonnie raises her chin. "The only people who know I come here are Damon and Stefan."

"Precisely," Klaus says. Bonnie trips over her feet, and he reaches out to steady her, just for the briefest of moments before he lets go again. A chill of foreboding runs down her spine, and not from his touch.

oOoOo

She tries to talk to Damon and Stefan about it, but they brush off her worries.

"Don't sweat it," Damon says with a wry smile. "We'll take care of you. Besides you just have to stay alive long enough to protect Elena."

"Damon!" Stefan's voice carries an unspoken warning, but Bonnie can't help but think Stefan is more worried about her reaction to Damon's words than he is shocked by the meaning of the words themselves.

"I'm just kidding, sheesh," Damon says after a beat. He glances at Bonnie. "You know that, right, Judgy?"

Bonnie forces herself to smile.

"Of course," she says.

Damon gives her his customary one-sided smirk, but his eyes are calculating and a sudden cold envelops her. Her glance skitters away towards the trees behind Damon and Stefan, and _he's_ standing there, just watching, his body tense as if he could spring into action at a moment's notice. He stays until Damon and Stefan have disappeared into the woods again, and then he gives her a brief nod and follows them, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

When she gets out of the bathroom later that night, she finds a piece of paper on her pillow, her window, closed just moments before, now wide open. After wondering only perfunctorily how he got in, she picks up the note and reads it.

_They're lying._

Bonnie sighs.

"I know," she says out loud. She switches off the light and crawls onto the bed, back against the headboard, her legs drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. Her voice drops to a whisper. "But what choice do I have?"

"Life is full of choices, love." She senses rather than sees him approach the bed, feels inevitability rather than surprise at the touch of his hand on her leg. "You just have to make the right one."

oOoOo

"I found it," she tells Damon a week later. She lays out the grimoire in front of him and points to the page. "A spell to rid our town of what ails it."

Damon nods without giving the book a second glance. "What do you need us to do?"

Bonnie hesitates for a moment, but then he gives her that familiar, _hated_ smirk, and, just like that, it's easy.

oOoOo

In the distance, she can hear sobs, screams, recriminations, but she feels nothing inside, just calm. Then a hand is on her cheek, and aquamarine eyes are boring into hers.

"We have to go, love." An arm slides around her, catching her, supporting her as her legs buckle. "_Now_."

Instinctively, she clings to him and he whisks her away. And, for the first time since the Salvatores entered her life, Bonnie feels safe.


End file.
